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“Yesterday someone even came up to me saying, ‘Oh, you’ll get lonely, but I’m sure you’ll meet somebody else.’

“I was stunned. My husband has been dead less than a month. I can’t imagine ever wanting anyone else. I was 18 when I met Paul. He was ‘The One’ for 22 years, and he always will be.

“Our five-year-old daughter Ella is my only priority now. I just want her to be happy and secure.”

Lindsey is backing a charity campaign to raise awareness of “living wills.”

Compassion in Dying is urging people to make legally-binding “Advance ­Decisions” recording their treatment wishes should tragedy strike.

The charity had a 40 per cent surge in enquiries after the Sunday Mirror first told of Lindsey’s battle. Lindsey, who has made her own “living will”, says: “If something positive can come out of this Paul won’t have died in vain.”

Paul – a Merseyside traffic officer and Gulf war veteran – suffered severe head injuries after being knocked off his motorbike by a car in 2015.

Speaking from their family home in the Wirral, Merseyside, Lindsey reveals how their daughter – who had not seen him since soon after the accident in July 2015 – overcame her fear of her dying daddy’s appearance to say a moving goodbye.

Lindsey explains: “Paul had his own lovely room with French doors overlooking a garden and a pond and it was so peaceful.

The hospice staff were wonderful with Ella. They had a big family room. They gave her pizza and made her feel at home. She knew why we were there. She knew Daddy was going to die, like her nana and granddad had died.

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“When Paul was in hospital she had become too frightened to see him. He was linked up to machines with tubes, his body had shrivelled and sometimes he was thrashing around with his eyes open.

“But the hospice staff said no matter how old children are they should be given the choice of seeing their dying loved one, so I asked Ella, ‘Do you want to see Daddy?’ and she said, ‘Yes.’ I carried her in and Paul was lying so peacefully she wasn’t scared.

“She looked at him and then we put up a picture she had made for him. She had drawn a rainbow with her, me and Paul beneath it. I said, ‘Daddy is asleep’. She nodded. It was a comfort that she had seen him.” Paul died days later.

Lindsey says: “I got a call at 7am to say he had gone. I had seen him the evening before but then he went to sleep and died very peacefully.

“I went into Ella’s room and I told her ‘Daddy has died.’ She looked up at me and smiled and said, ‘Daddy has gone to heaven. He’s a star in the sky now.’

Lindsey Briggs says she knew Paul would not want to be kept alive in a vegetative state (Image: Sunday Mirror)

“From her room she can see the stars and she has been looking out at bedtime and saying ‘There’s Daddy. He’s with nana and granddad.’

She’s at peace because she knows her Daddy is at peace. I went to see Paul a few hours after he had died. It wasn’t nice. It didn’t look like him - but then for the last 18 months Paul didn’t look like Paul. I cried and cried, but I was so relieved for him. He was finally out of his nightmare.”

There will be an inquest into Paul’s death later this month – one last court ordeal for Lindsey.

She says: “Having to fight for Paul’s wishes was a terrible experience – one I don’t wish any other family to go through.

Ella overcame her fears to say a moving goodbye to her dad (Image: Ian McIlgorm)

“That’s why I’m urging others to make an Advance Decision about what treatment they want if they become incapacitated. People seem to think someone in a coma due to brain damage can wake up normally. The reality is much more unpleasant.

"Paul could have lived on in that state for years. A personal injury lawyer once told me it would be better if he was kept alive at least five years because we would get his full salary for the rest of our lives plus up to £1million compensation. But money can’t buy happiness – and I could never be at peace knowing Paul was suffering.”

Compassion in Dying says a third of Brits worry about becoming incapacitated but wrongly believe loved ones can act for us. Director Usha Grieve said: “Recording your wishes while you are well and able means, if the worst happens, what’s important to you will be known, respected and followed.”

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On the day Paul died, Merseyside Police lowered their HQ flag in tribute to Constable 1490 Briggs. At his funeral on February 9 , there was a guard of honour and four police horses escorted Lindsey, Ella, Paul’s mum, Jan, and brothers Jeff and Greg to Landican Crematorium.

“On the way people stood outside houses and bowed their heads,” says Lindsey. “There were Union flags and the force flag on his coffin. His army medals and police cap were on top. Jeff and Greg read tributes.

“We played the Elvis song ‘If I Can Dream’ and ‘It’s My Life’ by Bon Jovi – both Paul’s favourites. And I’d found a lovely poem, written as a tribute to a father, which was read out on Ella’s behalf. She loved it because it talked about birds and flowers and butterflies.”

Paul was later cremated. His family plan to scatter his ashes in a place he used to visit. But Lindsey will hold on to some of her husband’s remains in a heart-shaped box on their dressing table.

She says: “People ask if I’ve now got ‘closure’ but that seems the wrong word. Now with Paul at peace I can remember him how he was, not what he became. He was a fit, proud, loving man – a great husband and father.